Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University.
Professor of Law and Public Policy, Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law
Greg McNeal is an award winning entrepreneur, professor, and investor. He co-founded AirMap, a multinational aerospace and defense company honored as one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company and ranked as an Inc.com 25 Most Disruptive Company. The company also received a Los Angeles Business Journal Innovation Award, and a Consumer Electronics Show “Innovation Award.” The company was acquired in 2021.
He invests in and advises companies and entrepreneurs in SAAS, Defense, AI, and entertainment. The companies he founded or serves on the corporate board of have raised over $100 million in funding with his direct participation in the process. Those investors include Microsoft, Flexport, Sony, Qualcomm, Rakuten, Baidu, Airbus, and top global financial services and venture capital funds including Greycroft, Social Capital, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Bullpen Capital, Bay Bridge Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures, Operate Studio, TenOneTen, Temasek, Macquarie Group, Graph Ventures and many others. The companies he advises have raised substantially more funding, in part due to his advice and mentorship.
He is a tenured Professor of Law and Public Policy at Pepperdine University and a faculty member with the Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law and teaches courses in technology, public policy, internet, and privacy law.
As a public policy and legal expert, Greg has worked with the White House, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and independent regulatory agencies on matters related to technology, law and policy. He has on multiple occasions testified before Congress and state legislatures about entrepreneurship and emerging technology and has aided state legislators, cities, municipalities, and executive branch officials in drafting legislation and ordinances related to technological advances and has been appointed by Cabinet officials to serve on Federal Rulemaking Committees.
He is a frequent keynote speaker at industry events and academic conferences related to technology, law, and public policy. He advises venture capital firms and other investors, start-ups, law enforcement, consulting firms, and Fortune 500 companies about the legal and regulatory issues associated with emerging technologies.
He regularly appears on television and radio to discuss technology and business, wrote a column on business and technology for Forbes and has authored Op-Eds for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Washington Times, among others. In his early career he worked on national security, international criminal law and counterterrorism matters and served as an Army officer.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Sherif Girgis joined Notre Dame Law School in 2021. Prior to joining Notre Dame Law, Sherif practiced law at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., where he focused on appellate and complex civil litigation. Before that, Girgis served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Now completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton, Girgis earned his J.D. at Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Felix S. Cohen Prize for best paper in legal philosophy. Before law school, he earned a master's degree (B.Phil.) in philosophy from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Princeton, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. Girgis is coauthor of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, cited in a dissent in United States v. Windsor, and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination, released by Oxford University Press in 2017. His work at the intersection of philosophy and law--including criminal law, constitutional liberties, and jurisprudence--has appeared in academic and popular venues including the Yale Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Law, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
January Luncheon with Frederick N. Dyer
Montgomery, AlabamaInternational Liberty Under Threat
Uber: What's Driving the Discussion?
Terms of Engagement
Lunch with Sen. Bill Cowsert and Rep. Larry O'Neal
Atlanta, GeorgiaWhat Is Marriage?
Ferguson, Qualified Immunity, and the Future of Constitutional Litigation
Immigration
Is Administrative Law Unlawful?
New York, New YorkLawTalk with Professors Richard Epstein and John Yoo
San Francisco, California